Tobias, Dauntless Until the Very End
by tobeornottobenedict
Summary: After the epilogue of Allegiant. Tobias has moved on with his life as best as he could 29 years after Tris's death. He has also moved up in the political world of Chicago, but things are not all smooth sailing in the self-sufficient city. An outside force is disrupting their peace, which may bring to Tobias what he has always secretly wished for: death.


5pm – It's the end of my work day, and I am off from the Hub to my apartment north of the river. I guess I am a creature of habit, because I never moved from it. It became home, and I couldn't bear to move anywhere else. Too many memories of Tris reside all over this city. I walk out of the building and the brisk air hits me. Winter is about to be in full swing, there is a light snowfall. It's so peaceful and quiet.

Tomorrow will mark 29 years since Tris's death. 29 years since I saw her smile, heard her voice, touched her warm skin, kissed her raven tattoo. 29 years, more than one and a half times of her short lifetime on this planet. It's still hard to wrap my head around. I have never moved on… Not that my friends didn't try to make me. Christina was the biggest proponent, until the disaster that was the last blind date she sent me on. That was over 10 years ago. I didn't see a point in looking for someone to share my life with, I had already found her. There isn't, and never will be, anyone else for me. Only Tris.

As time has passed, the memories of Tris have gotten easier to think about… though I feel a tinge of guilt when I think of them fading from my mind. Some days I don't think of her at all; those days lead to the worst dreams. Forever chasing her, trying to catch up with her, trying to hold her and tell her it will be ok. Never getting my hands on her. Not once in all the years of that same dream. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had never met her. I always conclude that I would either be dead or even more miserable. And then feel her loss all over again.

I have been happy. My friends have surrounded me, and my job keeps my busy. I havent been tempted to touch the memory serum again. Christina was right, Tris only lives in our memories, it would be cruel to remove her from mine so abruptly. I like to stay busy, it's my best medicine. I haven't touched a gun in 29 years. Not since I left my dauntless life behind for that of public service. I can understand why Tris hated the gun after being forced to shoot Will. I had nothing to do with Tris's gunshot wounds and guns revolt me. I cant look at them, let alone touch them. I served as Johanna's assistant for a number of years before I got the nerve to run for myself. I went from a Representative of Chicago, to the mayor a few years back. Though, life isn't all sunshine and daisies. In the last 5 years there has been unrest all around us in the United States.

The success of Chicago in the aftermath of the Factionless War has been recreated by new cities across the country. There are 10 self-sustaining communities, free from bigotry if you are genetically damaged. These cities only have room for so many bodies, and while our technology has vastly improved, we just cant hold everyone. This has turned a number of people against us, and has made for turmoil in the cities after multiple attacks within them. Ive never understood the logic behind attacking us. The attacks just waste resources and man-power that could be put to use improving the system and allowing for more residents. I guess the attackers wouldve never made it in Erudite.

Just a few days ago, a truck full of explosives was stopped a mile from the Hub (where my office and center of our ruling government resides). Their plan was to burst into the lobby and blow the building up from below. I would've died. It's strange to think about how close I was to death. I don't fear death. In fact, sometimes I feel like I could welcome it like an old friend. What if Tris is waiting for me on the other side? I know it's a small hope, but it's one of the only things that has kept me going over these last 3 decades.

Suddenly I realize I am halfway home, lost in my thoughts. I like to walk home, much to the chagrin of my advisers. I like to breathe in the air of the city I make decisions for. I don't like being holed-up, separated from those I share my existence with. Maybe that's my Dauntless shining through, maybe it's my Abnegation. To be honest, both those parts of me are so far in the past I have troubles keeping them separate in my mind.

I keep walking, unaware of my surroundings. Still lost in thought. Tomorrow is going to be a bad day. It always is. 29 years have not made it even a little easier. She's gone, I lost her so many years ago. Images of her fill my mind. Then, before I know what hits me, Im on the ground.

... page break ...

Everything is fuzzy. Like I am in a daze as I try to raise my head from the ground. It takes my eyes a while to adjust. At least, it seems like a while, it could've been mere moments from the state I was in.

I look around me and see fire coming from a building. Then it hits me… an explosion went off. There are people lying in the streets around me. Most of them dead from what I can tell. It looks like there is crying and yelling coming from everywhere, but I cant hear it. My ears are buzzing, that's all I hear.

I get up, and someone sits me back down. I turn to see who it is, but only catch the back of their head. I can tell it is a police officer. He had turned to help someone else. He clearly doesn't know me, I cant just sit here.

So, I get up again. This time without anyone stopping me. People are too frantic to notice just about anything at this point. My dauntless training has prepared me almost too well. I cant sit still when people are in danger; when MY people are in danger especially. Now that my head is clearing, I can see that the officer who sat me down is Zeke. What are the odds in this entire city that he would be the first - and from the looks of it, only - officer on scene right where I am. He is busy trying to get a frantic women away from a child so a nurse could help. He hasn't looked at me again since trying to sit me back down.

"He must be slipping," I think to myself with a grin. He should've known better than to leave me alone if he doesnt want me up.

Then I hear it, from inside the building where the explosion went off. A women's cry for help. I hadnt realized that the sound had returned to my right ear until she screamed. It sounds so much like Tris that before I even realize what I am doing I sprint for the building. Of course it's not Tris, she died so long ago. I reach the threshold of the building and see the women in the back corner of what is left of the frame. A fire is raging overhead as the ceiling looks dangerously close to collapsing. Without a second thought, I dash through to get to her.

I reach her quickly, but the building starts to go. It collapses all around us. I kneel down and shield the woman from what I can. When the sounds stop, I realize that we are still there in one piece, somehow the corner we were in stayed up. A quick overview of the situation is bleak. Our exit is blocked. We have nowhere to go.

Only then do I feel the heat on my back. Im on fire! I rip my jacket off as quickly as I can and throw it away from me. It doesn't matter where it goes, one jacket on fire in this inferno wont make any difference.

Panic starts to swell in my chest. I have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape. My dauntless training, which I have always felt ever-present, seems to slip from my mind. Im going to die. There is no escape from the flames. They are closing in. I can feel the heaviness of claustrophobia closing in on my lunges. The panic starts to fill me, I've lost my cool. I feel like I am in my fearscape, but there is no trick I can play with my mind for this fear to slip away to the next. The fire is like walls closing down on me. Ever present.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see it. The last wisps of daylight shining through a crack in the bricks a few feet from the corner where the women lays crumpled on the ground. I need something to smash at the wall. Anything. I know this plan has risks, the disturbance to the structure could bring the whole building down, but I cant sit here and do nothing. We are going to die anyways.

I start to look around for anything I could use, and see a large rock about 5 feet to my right. I suddenly wish I hadn't gotten so 'laxed on my weight training in my older years. I move the women from the corner, just now noticing how young she is. Cant be more than 17. She reminds me so much of Tris. I get that tinge of sorrow that I am all too familiar with when I look down at her limp body; passed out from the heat.

I move her away from where I plan to throw the rock, but not too far that I wont be able to grab her and run as fast as I can once I throw. Then I move for the rock. Probably about two feet across, and easily 75lbs. If not more. Very hot from all the flames. The rock clearly used to be part of an indoor water fountain as there is a perfect hole drilled through it. The explosion was so massive, who knows what part of the building it came from. I roll it around a little until I find two spots cool enough for my arms to not feel like they are on fire.

The next series of events move so fast, it's like a fuzz in my vision. I spin in a circle to gain momentum and release the rock towards to crack of light. I snatch the women up and throw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I am all adrenaline at this point, I can feel it coursing through my body. The dauntless in my feels alive again, for the first time in 29 years.

I rush through the hole I created. I can hear the building collapsing around us but don't dare to look. I don't have time, I must get through the hole. I feel the rush of fresh air as I reach the threshold. I take a gasp of it into my smoke filled lungs and it feels like my first breathe. Then the brick hits my shoulder. We're not safe yet.

I run as fast as I can but bricks keep pelting me, there is no way I can get us to safety from this crumbling rubble. I've got to try to save the women. As I run, I throw her as far as I can, hoping she will hit the large pile of snow about 10 feet away for a softer landing. But I dont see if she made it to safety before the rubble falls around me. I am buried. Everything goes dark.

... page break ...

I awake in a hospital room, surrounded by doctors and nurses. They are in a panic, I can see it all over their faces but I don't hear a word. It's like Im not really there, like Im in between worlds. That's when I see her, standing in the corner. Tris.

She looks the same she did the last time I saw her, when we said our good bye in the atrium. Our last precious moments together that I have relived over and over in my head. I wish I had known those were our last when I was living them. I would've soaked up every smile, every giggle, every word more carefully. She smiles at me, and I try to get up to go to her, but cant move. I try to say something to her but I cant. I am stuck, frozen to my bed.

That's when she starts to move towards me. She smiles, that smile I always loved and never got to see enough, "Hello, Four."

I cant speak, I know this, but I think a response hoping she can hear me, "Tris, did I save her?"

"Yes, Tobias. You did amazing. Now it's time to come home with me," she replies sweetly, brushing her hand on my cheek. It's warm, like it was before I saw her on that cold slab after she died.

"I have missed you so much," I think as I stare into her eyes.

Her eyes well up with tears as she continues to stroke my cheek and she says, "I know, I've always been with you; never left your side. You became everything you hoped: brave, selfless, smart, honest and kind."

I can feel a tug at my chest, I know that my body is giving up. It's time, time for me to die. The day I had always wondered what would bring. And all of my hopes are coming true, Tris is standing at my side. An tear rolls from my cheek as she takes my hand. I am going to die and I've never been so happy. Something is clearly wrong with me normal people arent so welcoming to death, but I don't care. All I care about is Tris. She is my everything. She always has been, from the moment I saw her in that net. The first jumper.

My home is where Tris is; Im going home.

"I love you, Tris," is my last thought as I close my eyes.

"I love you too, Tobias," I hear like a whisper in the wind as the world goes dark once and for all.

****This is my first ever fanfic. Please let me know what you think in a review. Good, bad or indifferent. Thanks!****


End file.
